Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment School re-testing for gifted program ADHD/Cogat

Hello, I'm a new member with a big concern about our school wanting to retest using the Cogat. It's a loaded question, so I'm sorry that it's so long.

I have two children who were placed in gifted program using private testing in NC nearly 2 years ago. In the meantime, we moved abroad for one year and are now in Georgia (US) permanently. Since it was within two years from the private testing, we presented it to our school for consideration in gifted program here. They have looked over it and are asking to completely throw out those scores and retest using the Cogat for academic and mental and teacher rankings for creativity and motivation (the later two were not tested previously).

DS is currently in 2nd (held back a year for maturity and processing speed) and DD is 4th.

Once my daughter's mass second grade Cogat scores came back (two years ago), we were alarmed, since they were so low (compared to psyed done two years before that), so we returned for private testing and also had our Kindergarten son evaluated at the same time (scores below). DS's second grade cogat at that time: V: 88, Q: 69, NV: 54.

To complicate matters, both were also diagnosed with ADHD (which would, IMO, invalidate DD's 2nd grade cogat scores, since she was not yet dx or treated and tested in a distracting setting).

Both are now medicated and reported as model students, but no official IEP, 504 or testing accommodations have been implemented at school. Teachers say they see no signs of ADHD. My concern is that we don't want this cogat to be the test that determines if we need testing accomidations or not. Apparently, if they don't qualify on this set of testing, they are locked out for two years from trying again. We've been through so much, with strong behaviors at home, I feel providing some challenge at school might help alleviate. Their school work is way, way too easy and I receive push back for any extra work at home.

To further complicate matters, both have a huge processing speed delay, which I think may impact testing more than attention, since we seem to have that under control. Also, no child ha had any formal testing or test-taking prep since that time (no tests were given abroad) and they missed a year of the common core curriculum.

Would you be concerned about the use of the cogat for a child with this profile? What does the Cogat manual say about this? Is this included in the norms? Are there accomidations I should ask for?

Private Testing scores (2 years ago)
DS (Kindergarten at the time of testing): WISC-IV: FSIQ: 130SS (98%)/GAI 140SS (99.6%); WJIII-ACH: %ranks: 97, 98, 99 & 95

DD (2nd at time of testing): WISC-IV: FSIQ 138 (99%) & GAI 148 (99.9%); WIAT-III: % ranks: 95, 81, 98, % 99

The above testing MORE than meets the requirements for gifted placement here, but they are throwing it all out for the cogat. What do you suggest I do? Any suggestions? Please help!

Thank you so much!

You might find some useful information here, in this brief interpretive guide:

http://riversidepublishing.com/products/cogAt/pdf/cogATshort.pdf

According to the HMH website, the range of index scores you report should have triggered a review of validity (both because of the diversity of scores, and because of the extreme nature of two of them). (See the interactive score interpretation page: http://riversidepublishing.com/products/group/cogat6/input.jsp)

This document lists the allowable accommodations, on pages 10-13. Also specifically says that CogAT is not an intelligence test (p. 64):

http://ed.sc.gov/agency/ac/Assessment/documents/SCTCM_13_Manual_FINAL.pdf

You would need a 504 for frequent breaks. No more than an hour of testing is supposed to be administered per day for primary-age examinees.

I imagine that the reason your school system insists on CogAT scores is to maintain a consistent policy and procedure for entry to GT programming. Note the GT CogAT may be the three-subtest screening version, and not the six- (gr K-2/K, 1, 2) or nine-subtest (gr 3-12/A-H) versions.

I'd add one thing to aeh's excellent advice - the CogAT is usually timed; you will probably want to ask for extended time (or untimed) due to the issue with processing speed. You can also asked that it be administered one-on-one rather than in a group setting.

The other thing I'd add is - you are going to most likely have to take the CogAT if the district is refusing to look at the private test scores - we've been in a *very* similar situation (without moving lol!), where our ds in early elementary had private testing that was well above cut-off limits for gifted entry, but scored lower than the required bar on the CogAT, and also didn't have a teacher who felt she knew him well enough to fill out the creativity/motivation/etc questionnaire. I don't know if any of this will help, but here are a few pointers from our experience:

1) Don't be afraid to appeal if/when the school tells you "no", your child doesn't qualify. Keep on advocating, not screaming, but advocating forcefully in a kind way, if that makes sense. You *have* proof of intelligence in the outside testing. The school staff may insist that your child can't qualify because of a CogAT score, but in return you simply keep responding - yes, BUT, and then remind them of the private test scores.

2) Ask them why they think a child who scored so high on the WISC didn't score in the same range on the CogAT. They won't have an answer. Jump in and let them know what you suspect is the reason (ADHD or whatever). Conversations like this don't usually automatically get your child magically automatically placed into the program, but they make it clear that you are thinking this through and you aren't going to disappear into a dark corner and go away and just forget about it all. And it *might* get the school staff to thinking a little bit outside the box.

2) Put all your conversations with staff in writing. If you have a meeting, after the meeting write out your understanding of what was discussed and decided upon at the meeting and emial it back to everyone who was there. Do the same for one-on-one conversations with teachers etc. This can be done nicely and politely - you can always thank the teacher/whoever for meeting with you etc, and then recap the conversation, and ask if there is anything you've misunderstood.

3) Pay attention to who is telling you no. You start with the immediate school staff who are responsible with testing etc - but if you run into the situation of being told "NO gifted program admission" due to CogAT and that's that - talk to the district gifted supervisor, or whoever is next in line in charge of the gifted programming. Eventually you are going to find someone in the district's gifted program staffing who is going to recognize that a test such as the WISC, administered individually, is going to usually give a much more realistic assessment of a student's true abilities than a learned-ability test such as the CogAT administered in a group setting.

4) Don't assume that all the kids in the gifted program got in through group CogAT testing. Don't assume you are the only parent that ever advocated hoping to get their child into the program without qualifying CogAT scores.

5) From what other parents have told me - and this is just in my district, I have no experience anywhere else and I'm not an authority on anything - but it might be worth considering lol! - in early elementary our gifted program had a combo of kids who qualified because they obviously *looked* gifted to teachers, another cohort of kids who's parents requested they be tested, and a third (and significantly high number) group of kids who qualified through *IEP* testing, which is not CogAT - it's an individually administered IQ test (WJ-III Cog in our district). They were kids who don't look gifted and were having so much difficulty functioning in the regular classroom that they were referred for evaluations for IEPs for behavior etc issues, and suddenly it was discovered that they were, in fact, incredibly smart. In your case, one thing to consider might be the ADHD - you don't have any 504 or IEP in place right now, but you can request one if you think your children need one - and I suspect you might at least need 504 accommodations. If you make a written request for an evaluation based on concerns about the impact of ADHD in the classroom, and if the full team agrees to evaluate, you'll be able to get at the very least an individually-administered IQ test that is run *through* your school district and therefore should carry some weight. You can also attempt at least to advocate for gifted programming or differentiated classroom work through the IEP eligibility process.

I hope that makes sense! Good luck to you as you advocate!

polarbear

DD has similar WISC scores and similarly bad CogAT scores in 2nd grade because of her ADHD and processing speed issues. Do you have an actual report from the CogAT? Our district mailed out a report and I was able to see that the problem with the CogAT was NOT that she was answering questions incorrectly, but that she did not finish the test. For the Quant Section, for instance, she only attempted 32 of the 60 questions. She was very accurate on what she DID do, leading to an average score, but obviously leaving almost half the questions blank is not going to lead to a score in the 98th-99th percentile. When I talked to the people in the district I kept emphasizing that the test was UNFINISHED due to her ADHD and speed issues. Ultimately they used outside WISC scores. Since their encounters with me, they now apparently offer modifications to kids who have IEPs or 504s, such as no time limit, testing individually rather than in a group, circling answers in the booklet rather than bubbling, etc. If that had been an option back when DD was tested, I think she would have done fine. Except for the fact that she had no 504 because the teacher thought she was "perfect" and the school refused to write one saying that she wasn't impaired. But that's another story. I also noticed that on the CogAT report, her ability profile was listed as 7E which indicates huge gaps between scores. The district should flag profiles like that and immediately offer alternate testing, but they do not. They just want something to plug into their system and flowchart. Luckily, DD's verbal score was high enough (since she finished that section) that they DID actually identify her as gifted, but not gifted enough to get in the "highly gifted" program, so that's why we had to have the WISC.
I would never again allow the CogAT testing on DD if it is timed because I don't think there's any way to get her speed up enough to get an accurate result. Whenever there is any kind of timed test she actually slows down more due to anxiety.

Are they asking you, or telling you? Because that makes a big difference. If you have any choice in the matter I would absolutely stick with the scores you already have.

If the CogAT must be given, then absolutely ask for an untimed test administered one-on-one.

FWIW DD did poorly on the CogAT in 1st grade before being medicated for ADHD, and scored a 99% the next year. She had the above accommodations both times.